NEW DELHI: Chairman of India's COVID-19 Working Group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), Dr. NK Arora, spoke on India's COVID-19 Vaccination Drive.

The decision to increase the gap between two Covishield doses from 4-6 weeks to 12-16 weeks is based on scientific reason regarding behaviour of adenovector vaccines, said Chairman of NTAGI, N.K. Arora.

"This was the basis on which they overcame their epidemic outbreak due to the Alpha variant. The UK was able to come out of it because the interval they kept was 12 weeks," the doctor said as questions were raised when the government announced to increase gap between Covishield doses.

"We also thought that this is a good idea, since there are fundamental scientific reasons to show that when interval is increased, adenovector vaccines give better response. Hence the decision was taken on May 13, to increase the interval to 12-16 weeks." This also gives flexibility to the community, since everyone cannot come at precisely 12 weeks or so, said Arora.

"This issue was then discussed threadbare at an NTAGI meeting, again with no dissenting notes. The recommendation was that the vaccine interval has to be 12-16 weeks." Arora said that the earlier decision of four weeks was based upon the bridging trial data available then and that the increase in gap between two doses was based on studies that showed higher efficacy with increase in gap.

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